Lemon Cake

We had a great lemon crop this year, which probably means next year will be a flop, but I digress. Anyway, my mother and I have been looking for recipes using lemons. After failing to find a lemon cake recipe I really liked I made one up.

First make a yellow cake. For a very lemon-y cake: I added about a teaspoon of lemon zest to the batter, which worked out great, but next time I think I'll try a tablespoon of juice, just because.

Second, make pudding. Add lemon juice to a vanilla pudding recipe. I recommend using a half recipe and cooking it a little longer. Or the recipe that follows.

3/4 cup sugar                         2 egg yolks
1/3 cup flour                         1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2cup milk                      -Optional- yellow food dye
Juice from 5 to 6 lemons, about 1/2 a cup,

Mix the dry ingredients in a sauce pan until there are no lumps. Add milk, lemon juice, and yolks and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Add vanilla and a few drops of food dye, if used. Remove from heat.

Place pudding between two of the cake layers and frost with cream cheese frosting. I put a little lemon juice in my frosting, but that might be why it didn't fluff up. More experiments needed. As you can see I decorated it with toasted coconut and a couple cut up strawberries on top, but you don't have to. 
 To toast coconut place evenly on a pan and put in oven on broil (you can probably use a toaster oven) for about 5 minutes, watch it carefully because it burns easily.

 Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's official blog. Have a bat-tastic day!